On March 17, the Global Fashion Collective, a Canadian-based organization formed in 2017 to cultivate the future of global fashion talent, held a show within the Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo. The showcased designers included Ao Miyasaka, 26, and Marika Suzuki, 20, from Japan. Miyasaka and Suzuki also appeared in the New York Fashion Week, from February 11–16.
There are many possible sources of inspiration for fashion designers. For some it is the advance of technology. For others, the trends of society. For others still, the motivations are deeply personal. Miyasaka and Suzuki, two young designers, fall into the third camp.
Marika Suzuki is an upcycle designer, whose creations include heat-treated plastic, and textiles that were scheduled to be discarded. A victim of junior high school bullying, and in possession of an obsessive-compulsive disorder, she draws on her personal struggles to make creations with themes of “vulnerability” and “coexistence with imperfection.” The environmental sustainability of upcycling is fundamental in her work, she admits, but it is not the “essential criterion.”
Designs Inspired by a Traumatic Past
The creative source of Ao Miyasaka is considerably more dark. A victim of sexual violence during her childhood, she commenced her artistic career as a graffiti artist at a public housing estate in Matsumoto city, Nagano.
She would then move on to painting, but it was in embroidery where she found a “flow state” that proved to be an effective form of therapy. It was art which swept away her suicidal thoughts and gave meaning to her life, she expressed in a lengthy conversation with JAPAN Forward.
In addition to innumerable runway shows over the past five years, Miyasaka has exhibited textile art, embroidery, and paintings, in locations that include the United States, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. In February 2026, her artwork was exhibited in New York. The main focus was the “embroidered graffiti” that can be seen on many of her fashion designs.
Miyasaka seeks to translate the theme of “murder of the soul” into the language of fashion — a term used to describe violence against children within the home, and the trauma of sexual crimes.
Innocence, Fear, and Resilience
The conclusion of her show was particularly powerful. A single model walked to the end of the runway. The creation she wore was devoid of arm holes, but contained three openings. She was joined with two other models who placed upon her a cape that was covered in drawings, and messages delivered to contemporary youth. Its principal directive was less of hope than of resilience: “Just keep living.”
The three holes in the creation worn by the central model represent the number of times Miyasaka freely admits to have experienced sexual violence. The music that accompanied the finale commenced with an innocent melody of the type that can typically be heard when children enter Japanese school commencement and graduation ceremonies. It abruptly transitions into garbled recorded audio of an actual tension-filled encounter that Miyasaka experienced with a policeman.
“From an ordinary moment of peace” Miyasaka explains, “fear can strike without warning.”
Future Dreams
Both Suzuki and Miyasaka are young women who own the future. What do they hope for Japan and themselves? For now, recently graduated Suzuki is happy enough that an arts-focused tertiary education financed by her parents may have led to skills that actually generate a profit. She dreams of collaborating with movie directors Tim Burton and Mika Ninagawa.
Interestingly, Suzuki feels that while children tend to express their dislike directly to people with different appearances and hobbies, adults treat them with “excessive respect.” She hopes for greater acceptance of “new values” in her conformity-driven homeland.
Miyasaka’s primary wish is a society in which people of conscience “open their eyes and raise their voices” to issues such as sexual violence. However, she sees the solution in society terms.
“I want to reach people who have never had the time to engage with culture or art, and to meet those who can look at and change social structures” she states. With the Epstein files controversy raging in the United States and elsewhere, her campaign may be well timed.
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Author: Paul de Vries